After the 2-2 draw at St Andrews last midweek, where Man City grabbed the lead twice only for a spirited Birmingham to cancel out their advantage, Roberto Mancini made no bones about his unhappiness as the Eastlands side fell further behind in the title race with a run of one win in four league games.
In January and February the team has looked so tired. A team like us should be winning 1-0 and be defending well, be very strong. But instead we’re gifting more chances….We can’t concede two goals every game. We must do something and play better. I think tonight we played well the first 50 minutes but after that we forgot to play. I don’t know why at this moment but I should change something.
The next game -last Saturday’s home match with West Brom- saw a change no one was expecting; new big-money signing Edin Dzeko dropped to the bench and regular left-back Aleksander Kolarov was moved further up the field, taking his place wide left in City’s front three. The home side were three up within forty minutes and Kolarov picked up an assist and two Fantasy Premier League Bonus Points for his performance.
Dzeko’s arrival seems to have presented Mancini with a conundrum similar to that of Fernando Torres at Chelsea: how do you go about fitting these fantastic players into a winning formation? Dzeko is a wasted talent out on the left wing and clearly needs to be played centrally. A look at these heat maps from those above-mentioned games illustrates the benefit of fielding players in their natural positions (a concept not lost on Kenny Dalglish of late).
Against West Brom, Kolarov stayed wide and played high up the pitch, thus giving the team a far better balance both going forward and, resultantly, in keeping shape at the back. The heat map shows he made 78% of all passes from the left wing.
In the Birmingham game, however, Dzeko dropped deep and drifted into the middle, which is, after all, the natural tendency of a centre forward. In contrast, he made just 33% of all passes from the left wing. It’s perhaps no coincidence, then, that this match saw David Bentley, directly opposite Dzeko on the pitch, pick up the 3 Bonus Points for a highly-influential man of the match performance.
These Average Position maps show the team’s shape for each game. Against Birmingham, Dzeko (10) is stationed far too central to afford the side a proper balance, meaning Kolarov (13), playing as a left-back, is having to provide the width from deep, thus exposing that flank in his forages forward.
Against West Brom, Kolarov stayed wide up front, meaning Pablo Zabaleta (5) never had to over-extend himself going forward at left-back. City chalked up their first clean sheet in four games but perhaps more importantly for Mancini, with a natural left-footer on the left flank rather than an inside-out winger or centre forward, looked far more stable for it.
City’s first team coach David Platt commented on Dzeko’s absence this week, citing tiredness more than anything else:
Edin came here after practically a month off with the winter break in Germany, and has played four games in a short space of time.We felt it needed just one front man on Saturday, to give that point of reference to move the ball around. It was purely a tactical decision, but he remains exceptionally important for us.
With the race for Champions League places heating up, however, Mancini can ill-afford to gamble much further with tactics or the bedding-in of newcomers at such a key time in the season and it may well be that Dzeko will see more time on the bench, coming on when the points are wrapped up, as he done on Saturday. Certainly, Saturday’s performance was more in line with the “good defending, being strong” ethos Mancini is calling for right now, and if the City boss felt compelled to bench Dzeko in a home game with West Brom, it would be no surprise to see him sit out tougher fixtures until the team gels with him in the side.
In the meantime, Fantasy Owners of Kolarov will keep their fingers crossed this situation continues; given that he’s already on free kicks, a fair share of corners and taking City‘s mean defensive record into consideration, this could make the £5.7m defender an outstanding out-of-position Fantasy Prospect in the upcoming game weeks.
